Several within the Labour Party Desire Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Tells Interviewers He'll Remain – and the Economy Is Set to Strengthen.

"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to